Thursday Night News

It started as a secret protest, a spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down. The indiscipline of kicking back and having a drink during the week made it easier to swallow the week’s collection of poisonous news and information for which there was no time when trying to live a life of discipline. Personally, I would much prefer a life dedicated to reading fiction rather than non-fiction, yet I find it irresponsible not only to run from the information at hand in such a complicating world, but also to hide and not share a take on it. To make it easier, I casually curate until (not every) Thursday, when my mind and body are already tired of the week’s rigor of being a good boy.Because I’m not good; I’m bad.So in winter it is a glass of wine; spring and autumn, beer; and vodka for the heat of a tropical summer to swallow the ails of this world, weeding out a garden of journalists pining for attention in an effort to grasp where we are going and where we’ve been. Considering there is no longer even a consensus about the past, divination of the future is none the easier, but it is certainly, shall we say, more ‘palatable’ with some poison.The investigation has not always been toxic, actually. I’ve come across some nutritious reads, whether em português, other times en español, or in the English language that dominates world news. I sometimes decipher just enough French or Hindi to get another perspective.It has been the way I get around the incessant and annoying media all week, separating articles of interest for just one night, passing on what I learned – or didn’t learn – because having an opinion is much harder work than most imagine.

June 4, 2020

Over the last forty years, the police have been overburdened with managing the ills of society, says Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, in an NPR interview: “Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That’s what distinguishes them from all other government functions … They have the legal capacity to use violence […] That’s what really is at the root of policing. So if we don’t want violence, we should try to figure out how to not get the police involved.”

May 21, 2020

I burst into tears again for Thursday Night News. It was because of this story of Jyoti—the 13-year-old Indian girl who carried her injured father on the back of her bicycle for more than 1200km—that I cried tears of joy. This is the India I know and love and miss so much! It is the India that taught the world dharma, that most elusive of words, roughly meaning to do one’s duty, to fulfill one’s role in life, to do what is right, to serve this universe in the project that is humanity—unwavering and fearlessly—like my beloved Lord Hanuman, whose leap to do what must be done cannot be stopped. Ever! I wish Mr. Modi understood what dharma means, because he would have thought about his role when leaving millions of migrant workers, like Jyoti’s father, stranded without food and transport when he put a nation under lockdown with just a four-hour notice. If he doesn’t, he can sit at the feet of Jyoti, she has so much to teach us all:

What would bring Brazil, Indonesia and the US together in an evil story of empire and intrigue? It is called Operation Jakarta, and if don’t know anything about it—like I didn’t know about it—do not miss this incredible essay. I don’t know what is more amazing: the story, or the fact that I’m still shocked to learn about the hubris and hypocrisy of the USA—all over again:

So you have an economic religion, whereby you thought government spending was like household spending: either you have money or you don’t, or you surpass your credit limit or you don’t. It should be so simple. No need to be confused about the path forward for a country that’s broke. The Daily’s podcast breaks it down in twenty minutes with “Can Government Spending Save the Economy?” :

May 14, 2020

Would Trump be so stupid as to shirk US debt to China as punishment for COVID-19? Unfortunately, he might be stupid not to if he is to have any shot at re-election other than usurping the vote. If you are still on Team Trump, I suggest you brush up on your economics, because China had already spotted this stroke several moves ago, and is already structuring a new global currency based on—believe it or not—confidence in the Chinese government to replace the US “dollar dominance” over the global economy. As far as I am concerned, China has already won the game, but if you care to watch until the check-mate, be my guest, I’ll just get myself another drink:

When young, we had to declare our favorite popstars, sports teams, etc. Today, for however unfortunate it might seem, I believe we have to declare our favorite economist. For me it would be hard to choose, but I guess I must declare my admiration of Mariana Mazzucato, who was making a lot of noise this week about how to seize the moment offered by coronavirus to structure all the inevitable bailouts at hand to create a more equitable society and free ourselves from all the little hypocrisies in our twisted version of capitalism:

Do progressive policies have any chance of being enacted post-coronavirus?

Economist @MazzucatoM argues “let’s just do it. We don’t have a choice… We know now – Covid has completely woken us up to this – that we are only as safe as our neighbor is.” pic.twitter.com/gYJzmfFmsf

Among the little hypocrisies unveiled by coronavirus has been the true cost of this brief moment in human history in which a percentage of humanity has been able to eat what they want, where they want, when they want and how ever they want. It seems to be coming to an end, which will be painful for some, but will be celebrated by people like me. If you think you already know the true cost of industrialized farming, you think it is not related to coronavirus and you think eating animals every day is a right, DO NOT read the incredible article of New York Review of Books “The Sickness in Our Society”. On the other hand, if knowledge is more important to you than taste, please proceed:

April 30, 2020

Like moths, we go directly to the flame in front of us, oblivious to everything else happening around us in the dark. It might indeed be impossible to do otherwise when a raging fire like coronavirus is in front of us, but in an effort not to lose sight of the other imminent dangers lurking in the dark, I peeked at what the looters are doing while we are hypnotized. This week’s prowl included sighting another fire, one that is raging hotter than ever while no one is looking at the Amazon Forest, the destruction of which will most certainly release the next pandemic (I assume that you do know that there will be others, don’t you?); and it also included some thugs I found in the shadows—the usual suspects—conducting business as usual when not raiding everything they can before making a dash for the door, leaving us to choke to death. Unsurprised by the thugs’ insistence that their profits gets privatized and their losses get socialized in this moment of tragedy, I am growing ever more concerned how such hypocrisy and myopia will play out in the large and complicated democracies of this world, especially with inept and divisive “leadership” of countries like the US, Brazil and India.:

My reading over the last two weeks involved some apologies. Arundhati Roy was on my secret list of greatly admired writers who fell from grace when they opened their fat mouths. Her opinions of India and of Hinduism had been so nasty and disrespectfully imbalanced… but now I see she was right about many things:

I had been up to here with numbers (!), having long since observed how it doesn’t matter how many die as long as it is not in one’s household. Shannon Pufahl’s brilliant essay on the etymology of numbers in the New York Review of Books, “Numbering the Dead” was an awakening! Don’t miss it:

I repeat that quarantine is a good time to practice fasting. Not needing so much energy from food and health permitting, skip a meal, preferably dinner, and you will start to learn the invaluable knowledge of identifying the differences between hunger, thirst and anxiety. The effort may lead you to contemplate the connection between body an mind, which might even lead you to meditate on the connection between oneself and All That There Is. Kaveh Akbar’s meditation on her Ramadan fast in the Paris Review was sweet:

April 9, 2020

“I put them in the refrigerator” is my translation of the Brazilian expression to describe what you do to people you are angry at but cannot openly fight. You put them in a place to chill where no one can see them – especially you. It is a great place to forget them, so they can shrivel and mold away into something unrecognizable. Of course, you can also take them out again once you’ve cooled off. That’s what I had done to the Economist and the Atlantic. Although publications I have always admired, let’s just say they ticked me off for some frivolous opinions regarding the “feasibility” of a social state. The upheaval of COVID-19 is doing a brilliant job of punishing such opinion-makers for their hubris, unearthing the skeletons of hypocrisy.

That said, the Economist’s frigid callousness was once again as refreshing as it was insightful when covering the pandemic without pandering to emotion:

April 2, 2020

My face when reading how we have leaders that still haven’t quite understood the magnitude of this moment in history. It took world wars to create societies based on cooperation that reigned for some fifty years until competition returned for a forty-year gig, exacerbating the mess we are in. Only cooperation will do now and nothing else. The minimum state is gone and nothing less than the welfare state will do. You would think this would not be so difficult for the so-called intellectuals, the so-called leaders, to understand. But there are those whose contempt is blaring. They don’t want to help people. They think this crisis is just another item to throw into the ideological arena. They hate poor people. They hate them. And they still think money and power will protect them from a microbe in a world without nurses and doctors; transport and those responsible for producing and distributing food. Let’s see next Thursday Night and the Thursday Night after that!

I stand with Yuval Noah Harari: Coronavirus does not mean humanity must choose between health or privacy. And global problems can only be solved globally, by the solidarity of humanity, with honesty and dedication to the Truth—not to individual agendas. Such smallness will only make things worse:

Why does the truth need to be censored? Why? Why can’t someone say what is true, what is happening? Someone please explain this to me; it is something I have never been able to understand. Why fear the truth? Why can’t we speak what is fact? Why is doing so punishable—often more so than lying? It is something I have always wondered, whether it be all the “classified information” held by people we pay to decide what we “cannot know” or whistleblowers like these brave doctors and nurses:

I think all Americans should read this article without prejudice and regardless of whether or not you like Bernie Sanders. It is a brilliant essay on how the truth of America has been revealed in just two weeks:

Worse than Trump seemed unimaginable until Bolsonaro arrived on the scene. How to even begin to illustrate the ineptitude, the laziness, the delusion, the lack of intellect, the hate of intellect, the pitifulness, the bareness, the bankruptcy, the depravity…

They survived the Spanish flu, the Depression, the Holocaust and they having something beautiful to share with you:

March 26, 2020

An man collapses in the street. You run to him in a show of good faith. You feign holding him, but actually you pickpocket his wallet and his phone in a flash before you scream for others to guard him while you run off for help. Yes, there are those that low — and they are running our country:

I was hoping for a plan like Denmark’s complete freeze of the economy. The one annouced by the US government is a far cry and it was mired in the incessant battle between those who want to help people and those who are ideologically opposed to helping people; they are committed to helping (their) companies:

I would probably call this one “Chronicle of a Death Foretold“. Don’t miss this one:

March 19, 2020

I am crying as I write these words, because at this very moment the four boys are being hanged in a Delhi jail. Everything came back to me from eight years ago. I will never forget that day for as long as I live. I didn’t understand why traffic had stopped in Chandni Chowk and why there was a candlelight vigil walking up and down the street. The police were everywhere. The military had been deployed to control the crowds that had come to central Delhi to lynch them. I remember the faces of hurt and disgust and of rage. At home, no one could eat. It was then that they explained to me what happened: it was more than just another rape; it was an unspeakably violent gang rape on a bus. I cannot bring myself to repeat what they did to her and how she died from the mutilation. It became to be known as the Nirbhaya case. It was the day India changed forever, because it was the day that Indian women had had enough and they started to find their voice. It was also the day that changed my vision of what Justice means; it was the day I started to truly contemplate what I had thought was the easiest to understand of the 20 values that Krishna teaches us in the Bhagavadgītā. I want them dead; I want them spared; I want their families not to suffer; I want Nirbhaya’s family to no longer suffer. AHIMSA, non-violence, the refusal to harm others, is not even remotely as simple as it sounds:

The Nirbhaya case briefly took my mind in the direction of the past and the present in a way that this week’s most significant event could never, because it is one that impounds futures both imminent and distant momentously. The coronavirus has completely upended my life and that of millions of people around the world in just a week. There is no longer a horizon; there is just uncertainty. I confess that it is just as fascinating to me as is it alarming and uncomfortable. So now what? Dunno. But I do know that every cloud has a silver lining. In my unwavering belief that “no hay mal que por bien no venga” – that there is always something good to come from any evil – I cannot help but to appreciate how this limit has arrived to make us question everything, to topple what we had taken for granted and what we thought was true. Watching, for example all the neocons, neoliberals, libertarians, Republicans and conservatives scramble to try to save a religion of competition to remedy the ails of the world has almost brought me to giggles. When everyone is the same boat, it is now clear that only cooperation – not competition – will get us out of this mess. How poignant. That is why they no longer have any choice but to sit down and listen to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and sincerely consider the importance of the Green New Deal, because – in light of all the trillion dollar bailout pledges swooping around like eagles – there is no longer anything too unrealistic, too expensive, or too “radical” when you ass is on the line:

This just might be the answer we have been looking for, not only to heal racism, but a lot of the other -isms of this world. I liken it to what we call in Brazil “sincericide”, a kind of brutal truth-telling of what is really inside you. I think it has the potential to be much more productive than that reckless, feckless experiment at neurolinguistic reprogramming that we call “politically correctness”, which is so draconian in its insincerity that it has divided us:

March 12, 2020

Neither coronavirus nor the stock market crash signal the end of the world to me, but ATLÉTICO MADRID BEAT LIVERPOOL IN LIVERPOOL! Now that is reason enough to believe the end is near, so this Thursday Night News has gone cold turkey—or should I say hot turkey? Hot ginger, lemon & honey to keep lungs warm and hydrated, ready for the attack. A little ayurveda won’t harm you, but Diego Simone most certainly will.

What will also harm you is ignorance. That is why I really did try to control myself; I really did try not to chuckle and snort—really I did—when I saw the pictures of Fábio Wajngarten, the top communications aid of the Brazilian President (whose communications company had windfall profits after he hired himself!), who is now diagnosed with coronavirus, standing happily next to Messrs. Trump, Pence and Bolsonaro. The latter who just did a live tiny desk concert to speak to the nation donning a face mask and the former who childishly refuses to get tested. Please be good; never wish ill of anyone; please do as I say, not as I do; and please don’t laugh:

Brazilians are much safer and protected than Americans from the coronavirus pandemic—a fact which has been the most poignant takeaway for me this week. There is still a national public health system that, for as precarious as it may be, is still there. It has real information, in real time, and it has a plan. They have already calculated when and where the peak will be and what they will need, and they are on the move. Yet there are other places in the world I also know well, places where people feel that is safer NOT to vote for a national public health system, or that it is somehow safer if a central bank unloads trillions for prop up the financial sector on a bad market day or that we’ll be safer with an unlimited military budget. Ok… I hope they are right and I am wrong; however, I don’t believe in coincidence: the Universe is delivering this limit at a political crossroad, in which the world is divided into teams of economic religions, complete with all the little hypocrisies that can be found in any religion. That is why I encourage you to listen to professor Jeffrey Sachs with Medhi Hasan on Deconstructed with “Capitalism v. Coronavirus” and the cited article in the Atlantic, because “There Are No Libertarians in an Epidemic”:

Some news is so horrible that it is good. Funny how that works when crooks get caught: you learn about a horrendous crime, such thousands of illegal shipments of Amazonian wood reaching American and European ports, yet it brings to light a corrupt regime that is breaking, subverting and undermining a nation’s own legal framework for protecting the world’s greatest forest and its indigenous peoples. I doubt the government will punish them, because they were appointed by our leaders to conduct this business. That is why I beg you to discover where your meat comes from, where your food comes from, where your gold comes from, where your wood comes from, because these thugs will be more than happy to tear up the entire forest to supply the manufacturing of the many things you consume. As the failed war on drugs has proven, there will always be a supply for a demand. Call your congressman, check the origin of the things you buy, see if your investment portfolio includes companies in commodities (mining, shipping, lumber, meat, oil, chemicals/pesticides) and tell your broker you care:

Arundhati Roy’s essay is not only a call-to-arms for all Indians, it is a plea to humanity, everywhere, in this divided world. Stop everything to read “We are sick” by one of the world’s great writers. It is bone-chilling:

Do you want your needs dependent upon a global supply chain that your country does not control? In the forty years of globalization, no one cared. In light of pandemics – and I would add climate crisis – both Trump’s and Sander’s argument for local productive capacity is on the menu:

This is an outrage! No, no, no! There is no reason to look for meat substitutes. Learn to cook beans correctly and with the right vegetables for flavor. No you won’t grate onion and garlic: Chop them with a knife! No you won’t use canned beans: you will soak red kidney beans for two days and boil them like your ancestors! No you will not put soy sauce in your beans: you will use celery, double the cumin, and few karipata leaves and/of bay leaf! For God’s sake!

February 27, 2020

Say what?? What Bernie Sanders should have said about socialism and totalitarianism was to reply with a question: “And what about Saudia Arabia? Let’s talk about state ownership of the means of production supported with US money and arms to exterminate dissidents!” I’m mad at Bernie Sanders for falling for this cheap, pathetic red-baiting on Cuba; I’m proud of him this past week to go forward with the courage to confront the American fairy tale, calling the US, as a possible candidate, “imperialist” and “corrupt”. It is. It always has been. And that doesn’t cancel out all the wonderful things about the nation and its people; the same way the atrocities of the socialist revolutions of China, Cuba and Russia do not cancel out their efforts to create more equitable societies. All men, all nations have their hypocrisies. They do not have to be “cancelled” for their past follies. As for socialism? I’m perplexed that the New Yorker and much of established media are actively undermining the difference between socialism and the social democracy promoted by Bernie Sanders, which has proven itself in many a nation, whereas all the data is in – along with the published mea culpas of the world’s most famous economists – on the adverse effects of neoliberalism over the forty years it has reigned. Bernie Sanders is by no means radical: he is not questioning capitalism; he is asking for the regulation we once had to protect markets and citizens that made a nation thrive. He is not promising “free things”: he is exposing the very neoliberal hypocrisy of trillion-dollar subsidies and unlimited budgets for oil, arms, corporations and the wealthiest amongst us, whereas health and education are somehow negotiable. Oi? That’s radical? If this red-baiting is the best argument they can come up with to cancel Sanders, I invite you to support him (and/or Elizabeth Warren) along with me.

The author made just one little mistake of context about Carnaval: Samba has always meant resistance, ever since samba was invented. Actually, the various forms of Brazilian music and merriment have always meant resistance. But, yes, the last couple years have inevitably evoked the tradition of taking revenge for a week on, shall we say, our unscrupulous leaders:

February 20, 2020

Trump fans: although correlation doesn’t imply causation, you could probably, safely, celebrate that the drop in immigration has resulted in significant wage increases across the US. Happy? I wouldn’t start clapping your hands just yet, because results produce other results. Of course, that means you’d have to do some studying – without memes. Ready? The Economist will give you a few articles a month for free:

The commercial relations between Brazil and China might seem far from you, but actually they are on your dinner plate every damn night and it effects the cost of most everything you buy—and that such a transaction is related to the burning of the Amazon forest should be of no surprise to you. At some point everyone is going to have to understand this relationship; I suggest you begin now:

Of course, if data and science cannot help you believe in the climate crisis or gun control laws, yet you are able to see causation between an outbreak of skin rashes from a new skin cream, there is a reason for your delusion:

And to think I ran from Rio de Janeiro during the World Cup and the Olympics fleeing to India in order not to get slapped in the face with this sickening, cosmetic solution for the poverty! I have so much to say about Trump and Modi that I’m almost speechless. I will just say what I learned in that very same city, Ahmedabad, the city of Gandhi, just six months ago, in the Mahatma’s own words: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.” In the meantime, get me something stronger! This is an outrage:

I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about! If I cut coffee, I would have a splitting headache; I would vomit and quite possibly have an attack of herpes (it’s on my forehead, ok?) Never go cold turkey!

January 30, 2020

Now, here’s a test for you. Should ICE: a)destroy records of abuse, sexual assault and death of immigrants under their custody, or b) not destroy them? If you answered A, you are probably part of the many Americans who would like (to regain) the right to discrimiate, the right NOT to treat others the way you wish to be treated. You probably also don’t see any reason that the Impeachment should hear evidence or witnesses. That means you probably only have situational value for the Truth, for non-violence, for human rights, for the Constitution, for human dignity. And having only half-values — by which you can inflict harm on others while remaining unscathed — is having no values at all.If that is the case, I don’t see how this division among us will be solved intellectually, by merely revealing truth for enlightenment. It hasn’t for the past four years: https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses/ice-plans-start-destroying-records-immigrant

“Preposterous” is what I initially thought when hearing the idea of a world without prisons. Considering unique experience and life stories of these two guests on New Yorker Radio, it is hard to argue with them, because, as they demonstrate, prisons do not and have never even passed the test of their own merit. They are an extension of slavery. They are an extension of everything that is wrong with this world. Indeed, it is hard to think outside the paradigm, but please consider “prison abolition” and “restorative justice”. I’m still reeling from this podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Dco3OhfmLZEx5XBw28OyX?si=wPgN_ZtQTRO5dPcgD59AUg

It is probably the longest articles I have ever read — even if only diagonally. Parallel, however, was my conclusion: I hope to be voting for Bernie Sanders, because this and other corporate lobby plots have got to stop! For those of you against the Left’s promising “free things”, you are not including in your calculations the many “free things” the wealthy have always received, which includes — but is hardly limited to — all the subsudies for military, arms, fossil fuel, and these chemical industries that are poisoning you: https://theintercept.com/2020/01/18/bees-insecticides-pesticides-neonicotinoids-bayer-monsanto-syngenta/

January 24, 2020

I wonder if they are actually aware that they don’t want democracy, that they don’t actually want majority rule. I wonder if they are aware that their politicians are handsomely paid by the arms industry that not only sells the guns, but also sells them abroad, wreaking havoc in places for which the very same industry is also ready to sign lucrative contracts to build walls and prisons, to supply military equipment, and to keep out those people suffering in those many places. That is why I am watching closely what is happening in Virginia, because as Gandhi well pointed out, those who hide behind guns are cowards; those who resort to violence are weak; they succumb to fear, and they will always lose to the fearless in the end. Always. And that is why I always remember Gandhi this week we celebrate the true American hero: Martin Luther King. But I also wonder if Gandhi or Luther King knew how much money the people behind the guns make 🤔: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/09/politics/virginia-lawmakers-gun-legislation/index.html? and https://www.npr.org/2020/01/20/797895183/richmond-gun-rally-thousands-of-gun-owners-converge-on-virginia-capitol-on-mlk-d?

We are having a water crisis in Rio de Janeiro, whereby the municipal water supply is, arguably, no longer potable. I think I’m inoculated after so much time in India, but not against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. I hate to add another bedbug to keep you up at night, but although you may reside far from the Ganges, you will most certainly have a date coming soon, in the same place where you both drink water and shit—and you won’t be able to buy yourself out of it with a filter: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/health/ganges-drug-resistant-bacteria.html?

Why destroy the apartment complex that families had bought? It is already built, right? Why waste the resources? Isn’t it too late? Might as well leave it! …That is what authorities all around the world want you to think when they often illegally and always very quickly approve construction projects on the sly. Never mind about land occupation or whether they have a sewage system. A few profit and the environmental damage devastates many more. I see no other choice but to start demolish more construction projects until people learn: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-51076897?

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Ricky Toledano

A native of Chicago, Ricky Toledano has lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for over twenty years as a writer, translator and teacher. [a]multipicity is multi-lingual collection of reflections through the humanities.